Google to Stop Selling Nexus One

After a long and painful decline, Google has finally put the Nexus One phone out of its misery. After it has shifted the last batch of handsets, the search company will stop selling its first – and possibly last – true Googlephone.

The Nexus One was not the first Android phone, but it was the first one to be designed and sold by Google itself. After a big launch back in January, the Nexus One went into decline. It was sold only through Google’s own web store, and the lack-of a hands-on, try-before-you-buy option kept this online store a “a niche channel for early adopters”, according to Google.

Google dropped the web store in May, putting the Nexus One into bricks-and-mortar stores, but it seems that even that couldn’t help. As soon as Google’s “last shipment of Nexus One phones” is sold out, you’ll only be able to find the handset via a few retail partners in (Vodafone in some parts of Europe and KT in Korea). Developers will still be able to buy the hardware, too. It will be available through an as-yet unnamed partner.

While the hardware dies, though, the software is still going strong. Android continues to grow, and its open-source nature means that handset makers are doing all sorts of great things like adding unremovable bloatware or preventing the user from running an unapproved version of the OS on their own handset (Motorola’s eFuse).

Kidding aside, Android is shaping up to dominate the mobile OS market the same way Windows has dominated the desktop market, and we’re excited to see the first of the Android tablets as they become available. And Android 2.2 Froyo, despite taking rather a long time to make it to Google’s own handset, is a pretty neat OS.

Now that the Nexus One is gone, it’s looking like the Motorola Droid, Droid X, or HTC Evo are the likely front-runners in the Android race.